As you likely know, Al Capone was one of the most notorious American gangsters of the Prohibition Era. Despite being in control of a massive syndicate dedicated to bootlegging, smuggling, and other illegal activities, he evaded capture for years and was never linked to the terrible crimes that were committed under him.
One of his most common means of going unnoticed were his many hideouts, some of which are known to have been in Canada, though their locations have been forgotten. To conduct business or to use his notorious presence to ‘convince’ a business partner, he would often travel to Canada from his massive Northern Wisconsin hideout, but for years the locations at which he stayed while in the country have been lost; that is, until now.
I have stumbled upon information which I believe will lead to one of his hideouts, and to a secret stash that was hidden there.
At the height of his criminal career, Capone made a trip to Canada on business, and we know from his personal accounts that he took ten million dollars with him. He stayed at a hideout near the village of Lanark, where he seems to have stashed the money. Then, when the time came, he and his bodyguards left the hideout to attend to their business in Perth; a massive arrangement to purchase alcohol for shipment back to Chicago that I know, after some research, would have cost Capone $4 702 000. He took the necessary money with him, leaving the rest behind and fully intending to return after the meeting.
However, the ‘meeting’ turned out to be a set-up, and the police were quickly on their trail. They sped back from Perth to Lanark, and then from Lanark towards their hideout, but they couldn’t shake their pursuers. Realising he could not give up the location of his hideout, Capone ordered his driver to drive down a small trail into the woods. Abandoning their motorcade, Capone scribbled the coordinates of the hideout, and the location of the rest of his money, on a piece of paper. But, in the rush to escape the area the paper was left in his car, which they abandoned in the trees along with most of the motorcade. The location of Capone’s lost Oldsmobile has been unknown until I stumbled upon some information regarding its whereabouts.
Capone never made it back to the Lanark area and never retrieved his hidden stash. Years later, as he lay dying, he decided to confide in Johnny Torrio, a childhood friend and mentor, about the existence and location of the hideout, and that he could find the coordinates of the hideout inside his old abandoned car. To his friend he wrote instructions to find the car in a way only he would understand, but I think we can figure it out. He wrote;
“I trust you because you know me well. You know the year I was born and the year I was on the cover of Time. Start at N 45° 2.715 W 76° 27.499 and you can use those two dates to find my car… ya know, the way we used to encode our hideout locations. I think I left the note in the glove compartment.”
No one seems to know how they ‘used to encode’ locations, but this is what I think will work; using the digits of each date, put a decimal point between the first two and subtract what you get from his initial coordinates. This should get you to his lost Oldsmobile, where hopefully you’ll find the note revealing the location of his hidden stash.
I know they were close to the hideout when they abandoned the motorcade, so you won’t have much further to travel after you have found his car. Also, when you arrive at the stash, people say Capone only kept money in a locked container, but that he always made the combination based on the amount of money it contained, so you shouldn’t have trouble with the lock.
I am giving you the information that I’ve found because I know how good you are with puzzles and coordinates; I hope the money is still in the stash when you arrive!
This is a multi-stage puzzle cache. Your adventure will take you to two different locations; the first being on private property (with permission of course, just walk down the trail past the gate) and the second on Crown Land. You will have to walk about half a kilometer in total, and should plan for the journey to take twenty minutes to half an hour after you arrive. Each location is fairly easily accessible along obvious paths, no bushwhacking is necessary. As both locations are on land used by hunters, make sure to check the dates for local hunting seasons, and if you are concerned wear hunter orange. Finally, please be careful when exploring ‘Capone’s hideout’ as it has become unstable over the years.
This large cache contains many exciting items for geocachers of all ages; feel free to take what you like as long as you replace it with something of equal value! If you are the first to find, please simply take whichever item you wish as a prize! The cache originally contained ‘stacks of cash,’ a whistle, an emergency poncho, 12-hour light sticks, a spork, a flashlight, an Exquisite Car, a slide puzzle, a slinky, a TB, and a log book (please bring your own pen!). There's plenty of space in the log book, so let us know if you enjoyed your adventure!
Good luck!
You can check your answers for this puzzle (the location of Capone's car) on GeoChecker.com.
Congratulations to the first to find, qtman!